In re Abortion Law Challenge in Colombia / Amici (Constitutional Court of Colombia)
In April 2005, Colombian citizen Monica Róa, a former Center
fellow and current attorney at Women’s Link Worldwide, filed a petition
with the Colombian Constitutional Court challenging the
constitutionality of Colombia’s abortion law, which categorically
prohibited abortion. Her petition argued that the Constitution of
Colombia requires exceptions to the prohibition of abortion that
protect a woman’s fundamental rights to life, health, privacy, and
dignity. In June 2005, the Center, in collaboration with Yale Law
School’s Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, the Red Alas
network, and the Colombian law firm Gómez-Pinzón, Linares, Samper,
Súarez, Villamil, filed an amicus brief in support of that petition.
The Center’s brief demonstrates that Colombia’s refusal to permit
abortion in order to save a woman’s life, protect her health, or in
cases of rape or fetal impairment is out of step with widely accepted
norms that recognize minimum safeguards to protect women’s basic human
rights.
Country/Region: , Colombia/LAC
Center Attorney(s): Luisa Cabal and Lilian Sepúlveda
Partners: Women’s Link and Profamilia
Summary: In 2006, in a landmark decision, the
Constitutional Court ruled that abortion must be permitted when a
pregnancy threatens a woman’s life or health, in cases of rape, incest
and in cases where the fetus has malformations incompatible with life
outside the womb. The Center is now working with the Colombian Ministry
of Health and local partners to ensure that the court’s decision is
implemented and that regulations are in place that protect women’s
rights and ensure access to legal abortion services.